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The Fortieth Parallel Project, Photos of America Along the 40 Degrees North Latitude Line

“The Fortieth Parallel” is an ongoing project by photographer Bruce Myren to capture panoramic photos of America along the 40 degrees north latitude line. Myren has been working on the project since 1998 and intends to capture a panoramic image at each longitudinal degree, that’s a panorama every 53 miles. Adding photos of each coast makes the grand total 52. Over the summer Myren ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to finance the project. He expects to complete “The Fortieth Parallel” in 2013. The photos in this post start in California and go east as you scroll down.

The line N 40° 00’ 00” roughly bisects the county and runs from the New Jersey shoreline through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, running along the border of Nebraska and Kansas, then traversing Colorado, Utah, Nevada, ending in California. I am photographing the 40th degree of latitude across the United States at every whole of degree of longitude. This panoramic series unites many of my interests and references several “histories”—my personal history, the history of the mapping of the US and photography’s role within it, and the history of GPS and new locative technologies. I am fascinated by our human desire to create systems and then locate ourselves within them.